Mothra (1961 film)
* * |directedby=Ishiro Honda |producedby=Tomoyuki Tanaka |screenplayby=Shinichi Sekizawa |starring=Frankie Sakai Hiroshi Koizumi Kyōko Kagawa Emi Ito and Yumi Ito Jerry Ito |musicby=Yuji Koseki |distributedby=Toho Company Ltd. Columbia Pictures |basedon=''The Luminous Fairies and Mothra'' by Takehiro Fukunaga, Yoshie Hotta and Shinichiro Nakamura |releasedate=July 30, 1961 May 10, 1962 |rating=Not Rated |budget=¥200,000,000 |boxoffice=?,???,??? |runningtime=101 minutes 90 minutes |next=''Mothra vs. Godzilla'' }} Mothra is a 1961 produced by Toho Company Ltd., and the first film to feature the character Mothra. It is an adaptation of the serial novel The Luminous Fairies and Mothra, published in Weekly Asahi earlier in 1961. The film was released to Japanese theaters on July 30, 1961, and American theatres on May 10, 1962. Plot In waters off Infant Island, a presumably uninhabited site for Rolisican atomic tests, the Daini-Gen'you-Maru is caught and run aground in the turbulence of a typhoon. A rescue party following the storm finds four sailors alive and strangely unafflicted with radiation sickness, which they attribute to the juice provided them by the island natives. The story is broken by a tenacious reporter Zenichiro Fukuda (also known as "Bulldog" or "Zen-chan") and photographer Michi Hanamura, who infiltrate the hospital examining the survivors. The Rolisican Embassy responds by co-sponsoring a joint Japanese–Rolisican scientific expedition to Infant Island, led by capitalist Clark Nelson. Also on the expedition are radiation specialist Dr. Harada, linguist Shin'ichi Chûjô, and stowaway reporter Fukuda. There, the team discovers a vast jungle of mutated flora, a fleetingly-glimpsed native tribe, and minuscule twin girls. These "small beauties" or "Shobijin," as Fukuda calls them, wish their island to be spared further atomic testing. Acknowledging this message, the team returns to Tokyo and conceals these events from the public. Nelson, however, returns to the island with a crew of henchmen and abducts the girls, gunning down several natives who try to save them. While Nelson profits off a "Secret Fairies Show" in Tokyo featuring the girls singing on stage, both they and the island natives beseech their goddess Mothra, a giant egg, for help. Fukuda, Hanamura, and Chûjô communicate with the Shobijin via their telepathic ability, and they express the conviction that Mothra will come to their aid. Meanwhile, Fukuda's newspaper has accused Nelson of holding the girls against their will; Nelson denies the charge and files a libel suit against the paper. Meanwhile, the island egg hatches to reveal a gigantic caterpillar, which begins swimming across the Pacific Ocean toward Japan. Mothra destroys a cruise ship and survives a napalm attack on a beeline path for Tokyo. The Rolisican Embassy, however, defends Nelson's property rights over the girls, ignoring any connection to the monster. Mothra finally arrives on the Japanese mainland, impervious to the barrage of weaponry directed at her, ultimately cocooning herself against the ruins of Tokyo Tower. Mothra's path of destruction causes public opinion to turn against Nelson, and he is ordered to release the girls. He flees to New Kirk City in Rolisica incognito with the Shobijin, where Mothra, newly hatched in her imago form, immediately flies toward to resume her search. The police and townspeople scour the city for Nelson as Mothra lays waste to the metropolis. Ultimately, Nelson is killed in a shootout with police and the girls are assigned to Chûjô's care. Observing a religious significance in Mothra's unique symbol, Chûjô figures out a novel way to attract Mothra to an airport runway: by painting Mothra's symbol large enough for her to see, she will use it as a landing pad. The plan succeeds as the Shobijin are returned amid salutations of "sayōnara," and they fly back to Infant Island with Mothra. Staff Cast |Kenji Sahara|Helicoptor Pilot |Akira Yamada, Takeo Nagashima, Arai Hayamizu|Infant Island Natives |Tetsu Nakamura, Akira Wakamatsu, Hiroshi Akitsu, Hiroshi Iwamoto, Toshio Miura, Osman Yusuf|Nelson's Henchmen |Yoshio Kosugi|Ship Captain |Ren Yamamoto, Haruya Kato, Ko Mishima, Rinsaku Ogata|Ship Survivors |Kazuo Imai|Announcer |Wataru Omae, Kazuo Higata|Officials |Shoichi Hirose, Toshihiko Furuta|Dam Workers |Koji Uno|Reporter |Tadashi Okabe, Akio Kusama, Mitsuo Tsuda|Surveyors |Mitsuo Matsumoto, Hiroyuki Satake|Police Officers }} Appearances Monsters *Mothra *Vampire Plant Races *Shobijin Vehicles *F86F Sabre *Orion Maru *M24 Chaffee Tank *M4A3E8 Sherman Tank *Sikorsky H-19 Chickasaw Weapons *Atomic Heat Ray Gun U.S. release Columbia Pictures distributed Mothra in the United States in a double bill with The Three Stooges in Orbit. Columbia removed about ten minutes of footage from the Japanese version of the film and rearranged some scenes, as well as dubbing the dialogue into English. Reception Mothra was a considerable critical and financial success in Japan. It launched the career of screenwriter Shinichi Sekizawa, who would go on to write several Godzilla films as well as contribute to Tsuburaya Productions' ''Ultraman'' series. The monster Mothra would go on to become a very popular character, appearing in the 1964 Godzilla film, Mothra vs. Godzilla, and countless other films in the series afterward. Mothra eventually received her own trilogy of films in the late 1990s. Mothra also received favorable reviews in the United States when it was released there, with critics praising its cinematography and special effects. Mothra remains a popular and beloved film among fans of the kaiju genre, due to its unique story and the fact that it introduced the fan-favorite kaiju Mothra. Home media releases Trivia *A scene explaining the origins of Mothra and the fairies was planned, but deemed too long and dropped from the final draft. *For years, it was thought that Rolisica was based on the United States. However, it was revealed years later that it was based on both the United States and the Soviet Union. In actuality, the name of the nation of Rolisica is a hybrid of Russia and America. The name of the country originally was going to be Roshirica. Also, the Rolisican flag is a hybrid of the American "Stars and Stripes" and the Russian "Hammer and Sickle". *In the American version, Mothra's home's name is changed from Infant Island to Beiru. However, in the American versions of her next three appearances, the island is called Infant Island. *Jerry Itô and Robert Dunham both spoke their lines in both English as well as Japanese. *This movie is thought to have popularized the notion of presenting giant monsters in Japanese movies as their individual, identifiable characters, rather than menaces who are meant to be defeated. Tellingly, Mothra is presented as more of a hero than a mindless, evil beast. This change in characterization would carry over to other famous giant monster characters, most notably Godzilla, as they would become similar to the early Western monster movie characters made popular in the Older Monster films (The Hunch-Back, Frankenstein's monster, the Wolfman, etc.) rather than the bestial and often interchangeable, generic Western notion of giant monsters. *This was the only debut film featuring one of Toho's "Big Four" monsters (Godzilla, Rodan, Mothra, and King Ghidorah) that Akira Ifukube did not compose the music for. *Jerry Itô's slow stilted delivery of his Japanese dialog fit his character as a foreigner speaking Japanese. This was not an intentional part of his performance. At the time this was made, Jerry Ito had been studying the Japanese language for over six months and was not completely fluent. *Hiroshi Koizumi would later return as Professor Shin'ichi Chûjô many years later in Godzilla: Tokyo S.O.S. (2003), which also featured Mothra. *Cameo: Kenji Sahara (as the helicopter pilot at the beginning of the film) *This is the first Japanese monster film in which the monster doesn't get "killed" at the end. *A different ending was originally planned where Nelson and his goons kidnap Shinji rather than tie him up. They then head for Rolisica via Nelson's private plane, but the plane crashes in Kyushu and Chujo. Senchiro and the police track them to a cave where Shinji breaks free and takes the case containing the fairies. Shinji then opens the case and the fairies telepathically contact Mothra who flies to where the action was. In a final confrontation with Nelson and his goons, Mothra ends up killing them and flying back to Infant Island with the fairies. Category:1960s films Category:Japanese films Category:Mothra (1961 film)